Here is how I've almost eliminated this VMK Crashing problem in Pirates. When you finish the game, you get the blue message box. DO NOT delete the message or close this window right away. Click down near the bottom of the pirates lobby to move your character out of that exit queue. Once you've moved out of there, you can safely delete the message and you most likely won't crash.
I'm pretty sure most of the crashes happen when trying to close the message window before the entire room has come into your computer's cache.
Arg mateys...